The Rust Bucket drove down the road, heading toward their next destination while the morning sun shone over Los Angeles. Inside the RV, Ben was still busy investigating what was wrong with his Omnitrix.
The device continued to behave strangely, its display switching between different alien silhouettes without any input from him.
That was until Max suddenly spoke up.
"Hey! Who's up for pizza and video games at Pizza 'n' Play?"
The announcement immediately caught everyone's attention.
The kids looked at one another before gasping in excitement, their earlier sleepiness disappearing as they beamed at their grandfather.
"Us!"
"This day just keeps getting better and better!" Ben exclaimed, a huge smile spreading across his face.
For the moment, whatever was wrong with his Omnitrix and whatever strange figure kept appearing in his mind could wait. Pizza and video games were far more important.
Once they arrived at Pizza 'n' Play, the kids wasted no time making the most of their visit. They ate pizza by the pieful, played every arcade game they could get their hands on, and racked up thousands of tickets in the process. From House of the Dead to Frogger, from whack-a-mole to skeeball, there was hardly a game they didn't try.
Ben, in particular, was having the time of his life.
As if the day hadn't already been good enough, he even turned out to be the location's one millionth customer. The staff celebrated the occasion by giving him a free T-shirt and taking a picture with him. To top it all off, two employees who were both eighteen years old gave him a kiss, leaving Ben with yet another reason to grin from ear to ear.
For a while, everything felt perfectly normal.
Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last.
After their day of fun, the group finally left Pizza 'n' Play and headed back outside. Ben was still smiling from the experience, but as they made their way toward the Rust Bucket, his attention returned to the Omnitrix.
"Oh, yeah, Grandpa," he said, turning back toward Max. "With everything going on, I almost forgot to show you."
He raised his arm, presenting the watch on his wrist.
The Omnitrix was still glowing brightly, its display constantly cycling through different alien silhouettes. Ben watched it for a moment before looking at his grandfather.
"The Omnitrix has been acting weird."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Orfevre said with a casual shrug. "It's probably nothing."
Ben looked at her.
"Are you sure, Oru?"
There was something strange about the interaction, although he couldn't explain exactly what it was.
Orfevre had always been someone he could count on, so her reassurance shouldn't have bothered him. Yet something about the way she said it felt wrong, as though someone else should have been the one standing there and telling him not to worry.
Ben frowned slightly, trying to understand why that thought had even crossed his mind.
Before he could dwell on it any further, the sound of an approaching motor caught their attention.
A truck came speeding toward them from down the road. It approached at high speed before making a sudden U-turn, causing two crates in the back to tumble out and crash onto the pavement in front of the group.
The truck continued driving away, leaving the scattered crates behind.
Ben walked over to investigate the mess. He crouched down, picked up one of the packets, and stared at its cover.
His eyes widened.
"Sumo Slammers Space Wars!?"
He picked up the game packet and examined it more closely, hardly believing what he was seeing.
"This game's not supposed to be out for another year!" Ben exclaimed. He glanced down the road where the truck had disappeared, then looked back at the crates full of games. "I guess we should return these, shouldn't I?"
Max looked in the direction the truck had gone.
"Nah. That truck's long gone. I say play away!"
"He got a point," Orfevre said, nodding.
"I agree," Gold Ship added.
"Ditto," Gwen said.
Ben looked at all of them, his grin growing wider.
"Cool! Could this day get any better?!"
...
About two hours later, Max, Gwen, Orfevre, and Gold Ship had set up a comfortable gaming station for Ben.
They had arranged a television and a gaming station for him, along with a chair where he could sit back and enjoy his newly acquired game to his heart's content.
Max stepped aside to admire their work.
"There," he said. "That should enhance your gaming experience."
Gwen looked toward Ben with a smile.
"Would you like us to whip up some snacks for you?"
"Sounds great, dweeb," Ben replied, already settling into his chair.
"Oh, Ben," Orfevre said as she and the others turned to head inside the Rust Bucket.
Ben waved them off without even looking away from the television.
"Don't know why you are acting so nice, but keep up the good work."
He smiled to himself before returning his full attention to the game.
Whatever odd feelings he had experienced earlier, whatever was wrong with his Omnitrix, and whatever was going on with his family could all wait. Right now, he had a brand-new Sumo Slammers game to enjoy.
He picked up the controls and started playing.
"SUMO SLAMMER!"
On the screen, Ishiyama slammed Kenko into the ground.
Ben cheered, completely immersed in the game.
"Man, I love this game!"
He didn't even notice the others entering the RV. Nor did he notice what happened next.
Another Max, Gwen, Orfevre, and Gold Ship suddenly came running toward him from the side of the forest.
"Yo, Mega Dweeb!" the other Gwen shouted. "Get up off your butt and follow us!"
"Now!" the other Orfevre snapped.
Ben didn't even bother looking back.
"Hero time?"
"Duh!" the other Gold Ship replied. "What else?!"
"Okay," Ben said, still focused on the screen. "SUMO SLAMMER!"
He used the controls to make Ishiyama deliver another devastating attack against Kenko, cheering as the game continued.
At that moment, the four members of his family who had just gone inside suddenly came back out, only for them to stop dead in their tracks when they spotted four more familiar faces standing beside Ben.
Then they exchanged glances and nodded.
Without wasting another second, they dropped the snacks they had been carrying and charged toward the imposters.
Max and his double immediately grappled with one another, each struggling to gain the upper hand. Gwen's fight quickly turned into a chaotic exchange of magic and physical blows, while Gold Ship somehow managed to turn her own battle into a game of tag with herself, the two of them running around and trying to get the better of each other.
Orfevre, however, had no intention of playing around.
The moment her look-alike came within reach, she threw the first punch.
Her fist connected squarely with the other girl's face, sending the fake crashing against the side of the Rust Bucket.
Inside the RV, the fighting quickly became even more chaotic.
The entire vehicle began shaking as spells burst out through the windows. The sounds of struggling and crashing filled the interior, making it clear that whatever was happening outside had turned into a full-blown brawl.
One of the Gold Ships suddenly came flying out of a window.
The other one followed, leaping through the opening and delivering a dropkick straight into her double's face.
Nearby, one Gwen grabbed the other and smashed her face against the window of the RV's door. The door swung open under the impact, and the two of them tumbled out through the front, crashing onto the table outside.
The second Gwen quickly recovered and followed after her opponent. She bound the other girl's hands behind her back before grabbing her head and wiping it against the table.
"Ben! Help us!" Gwen shouted.
Before Ben could even react to the commotion, both Maxes came tumbling out of the RV, still locked in their struggle.
Within moments, all eight fighters were scattered around the ground, each pair struggling against their own double.
Ben finally looked away from the television.
He stood up, stared at the scene unfolding in front of him, and blinked several times.
"What the heck is going on here?"
"Ben! Help! They're fakes!" everyone shouted at once.
Ben's confusion only grew.
"Wait, what?!"
Before he could make sense of anything, one of the Orfevres suddenly broke away from her opponent.
She brought both palms together, and a dense crimson orb began to condense between her hands. The energy gathered tightly before she aimed it directly at the other Orfevre.
"Piercing Blood!"
A thin line of crimson blood shot forward with incredible speed.
The other Orfevre tilted her head to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack.
But she didn't immediately counterattack.
Instead, she stood still, staring at the girl who had just used the technique.
Her expression changed.
The calm, composed look she usually wore disappeared, replaced by something far uglier. Anger, guilt, and complete outrage twisted her features as she clenched her teeth.
"That's my brother's attack," Orfevre murmured.
Her voice was quiet, but the anger behind it was unmistakable.
The mention of Orfevre's brother struck Ben like a sudden blow.
He immediately grabbed his head.
Pain shot through his mind as something buried deep inside his memory began forcing its way back to the surface.
His summer vacation. The adventures he had gone through. The strange events that had been happening around him.
He remembered pieces of them, but there was something wrong with the memories. Throughout the entire trip, there had been someone missing. Someone who should have been there, someone whose presence ought to have been obvious.
Yet every time Ben tried to remember that person, all he could see was a pitch-black figure with no face or a voice.
Just an empty shape where a person should have been.
Ben squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his head harder, trying desperately to understand why the thought of that missing person hurt so much.
He was so distracted by the returning fragments of his memory that he failed to notice what happened next.
Orfevre moved.
Her speed was far beyond what a normal ten-year-old girl should have been capable of. In the blink of an eye, she crossed the distance between herself and her look-alike, closing in before the other girl could properly react.
Her fist was wrapped in a steady golden aura.
The energy condensed further around her knuckles, golden sparks flaring outward as she drew her arm back.
The look-alike barely had time to turn toward her.
"DIE!"
Orfevre roared as she drove her aura-covered fist forward.
The blow tore straight through the impostor's chest, leaving everyone who witnessed it completely stunned.
Even the fighting around them seemed to stop for a moment as the others stared at what had just happened.
Everyone except Ben.
He hadn't seen any of it. His eyes remained tightly shut as he held his head, struggling to recover the face of the person buried somewhere inside his memories.
Orfevre withdrew her hand.
The fake fell to the ground, no longer moving.
She didn't spare the body another glance.
The remaining fighters took advantage of the opening, quickly knocking down their own doubles before rushing toward Ben. They grabbed him and began dragging him toward the Rust Bucket.
"What... What's happening?!" Ben shouted, barely resisting as he was pulled along. His attention was still divided between the chaos around him and the painful fragments of memory returning to his mind.
"We'll have to explain on the way!" Max shouted.
As soon as everyone was inside, Max slammed the door shut and hurried to get the Rust Bucket moving. The RV pulled away from the area, leaving the defeated doppelgängers behind as they put as much distance between themselves and the imposters as possible.
Ben looked around at his family, still trying to piece together what had just happened.
"Okay, somebody needs to explain to me what is going on!"
"The others are fakes," Gold Ship said.
Her usual playful attitude had disappeared. She was taking the situation far more seriously now, especially after seeing what her older sister had done to her double.
Gold Ship might have been a prankster, but she wasn't an idiot. She had no intention of finding out what it felt like to have a hole punched through her chest.
"What?" Ben asked, staring at her.
"Imposters created to keep an eye on you," Max explained.
Gwen nodded, her expression serious as she picked up where he left off.
"This all started with you not having the best of days. Everything seemed to be going wrong for you."
Ben frowned.
"But things only got worse after a surprise attack by the Forever Knights," Orfevre continued. "They were too fast, and you got captured."
Ben immediately raised a hand.
"Wait, wait, wait. Hold the phone. I think that if I was captured by the Forever Knights, I would know about it."
"No, you wouldn't," Orfevre replied.
She walked over with her arms crossed over her chest, looking directly at him.
"They make sure to erase or block out that memory of you. Like how they block out the existence of my brother, Ever Gold, from your memory."
The moment she said his name, Ben's headache intensified.
The name Ever Gold rang through his mind, and the pitch-black figure he'd been struggling to remember suddenly began to change.
The darkness surrounding the figure started to fade.
A shape emerged from the emptiness.
Long brown hair. An old, ragged-looking trench coat.
Ben could almost make out the person standing before him, as though he were finally getting close to seeing a face that had been hidden from him for far too long.
His head throbbed as he tried to hold on to the image.
Who was Ever Gold?
Why did he feel so important?
And why did the thought of someone erasing him from Ben's memories fill him with such a terrible sense of loss?
Before he could find an answer, an armored truck suddenly burst out from the side of the road.
It slammed straight into the Rust Bucket.
The impact knocked the RV off the road, sending it spiraling out of control. Metal groaned as the vehicle lurched violently, and before it could come to a stop, the Rust Bucket snapped in two.
Ben was thrown off balance by the crash.
When the wreckage finally stopped moving, he stumbled out of the damaged vehicle, dazed and struggling to regain his bearings.
The armored truck had stopped nearby.
A familiar face emerged from it, followed by four soldiers wearing uniforms marked with the S.A.C.T. logo.
"Secure the area! Move!" one of the soldiers shouted.
The troops quickly spread out, taking positions around the wreckage.
Ben barely had time to understand what was happening before several weapons were aimed in his direction. The soldiers surrounded him, their weapons trained on him from multiple angles.
Then they parted, revealing the familiar man who had stepped out of the truck.
Ben's eyes widened.
"Lt. Steel!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?"
"Saving your family," Lt. Steel replied.
He looked toward Ben before briefly acknowledging the others.
"Sorry for the drastic measures, you two, but if they saw us coming, who knows what they would've done to you?"
Ben stared at him, completely lost.
"What are you talking about?"
He didn't get an answer right away.
Behind him, the wreckage shifted as Max, Gwen, Orfevre, and Gold Ship shoved aside the debris and struggled to get back on their feet. They had barely managed to recover from the crash when the soldiers turned their weapons toward them.
The sudden movement made Ben look back.
Lt. Steel immediately grabbed him and pulled him behind his own body, raising his blaster toward the four figures emerging from the wreckage.
Orfevre's expression hardened.
She instinctively stepped in front of Gold Ship, placing herself between her younger sister and the soldiers as she clenched her teeth in anger.
Lt. Steel kept his weapon trained on the group.
"They're not your family," he said firmly. "They're Limax: alien shapeshifters working for Vilgax."
Ben's mouth fell open.
"What?"
He looked between Lt. Steel and the four people standing behind the wreckage, his mind struggling to process what he was hearing.
"But they said that the other Grandpa, Gwen, Orfevre, and Gold Ship were fakes!" Ben protested. "And that the Forever Knights were behind all this!"
Lt. Steel glanced at him.
"And you believe that load of fertilizer?"
"He's lying, Ben!" Max shouted.
Gwen quickly raised her hands, showing that she wasn't trying to attack anyone.
"We're your real family!"
The four of them stood under the soldiers' weapons, trying to convince Ben that they were telling the truth.
Ben stared at the four familiar faces before him, desperate to figure out which side was telling the truth.
For the first time that day, he wasn't sure he could trust his own memories.
Suddenly, a booming voice echoed throughout the land, loud enough to shake Ben out of his thoughts.
It was a voice he had hoped he would never have to hear again.
"You may have stopped my minions, but you will not stop me!"
Ben's expression immediately fell.
Everyone looked up toward the sky, and their eyes widened at the sight before them.
Hovering overhead was the completely repaired Chimerian Hammer. The enormous spaceship loomed over the land, its imposing silhouette casting a shadow over the group. Whatever damage it had suffered before, it was now back in perfect condition, and its presence alone was enough to make it clear that their troubles were far from over.
Before anyone could say anything, a familiar squid warrior leaped out of the ship.
He descended toward the ground as dust rose around his landing spot. The group watched as the cloud slowly settled, revealing the imposing figure of Vilgax that stepped out from within it.
Ben immediately braced himself, his eyes fixed on the alien warlord who had caused him so much trouble in the past.
"Vilgax," he said, his voice filled with a mixture of frustration and disbelief.
Beside him, Lt. Steel took a step back, putting himself behind Ben as he looked at their enormous opponent.
"I hate to say 'I told you so,' but..."
Ben barely paid attention to him.
His gaze remained locked on Vilgax as he raised his arm, preparing to activate the Omnitrix and transform into one of his aliens.
But just as his hand reached the device, something happened.
Ben froze. His fingers hovered over the Omnitrix for a brief moment before he abruptly slammed his hand down on the dial.
Everything around them had changed. The Chimerian Hammer was gone. Vilgax had disappeared. The armies that had accompanied him were nowhere to be seen, and the surrounding landscape had been replaced by an unfamiliar wasteland.
There had been no warning, no obvious transition, and no time for anyone to understand what had happened. One moment, they had been standing before Vilgax and his enormous spaceship. The next, they were somewhere else entirely.
Blue flames burned across the land around them, casting an eerie glow over the desolate surroundings. The fire flickered against the darkened landscape, creating an ominous atmosphere that made it difficult to tell where the wasteland ended and the surrounding darkness began.
Everyone looked around in confusion.
"What...?" Ben muttered, lowering his arm slightly as he tried to make sense of their new surroundings.
The others were just as bewildered. None of them seemed to understand how they had gotten there, or why Vilgax and his forces had vanished without a trace.
Then they noticed something ahead.
In the middle of the burning wasteland sat a lone figure on a stone throne.
He appeared completely unbothered by the strange landscape surrounding him, sitting as casually as though the wasteland belonged to him.
His long brown hair waved gently in the wind, while his black pants and knee-length boots contrasted with the old, ragged coat draped over his white shirt.
One leg was casually swung over the other.
A golden Omnitrix rested on his left wrist.
He leaned his head against his left hand, with his elbow resting comfortably on the stone armrest.
Then his eyelids slowly opened.
A pair of violet-gold eyes looked out from beneath them, calmly observing the group standing before his throne. The moment his gaze settled on them, the corners of his mouth gradually curled into a smirk.
Ben stared at him. He knew that face. Or, at least, some part of him knew it.
The image of the pitch-black figure that had haunted his memories suddenly came back to him. The empty silhouette that had followed him throughout the summer, the person whose existence seemed to have been deliberately erased from his mind, was no longer an indistinct shape.
"...Evan?"
The name escaped Ben's mouth before he even realized he had spoken.
His eyes widened slightly as he continued staring at the young man. He couldn't understand why the name had come so naturally to him, or why seeing Evan's face made something stir so painfully deep inside his mind.
But he wasn't the only one who recognized the figure on the throne.
The others had recognized him as well.
Their attention was fixed on Evan, their reactions revealing that they, too, knew exactly who was sitting before them.
Evan looked over the group, his violet-gold eyes carrying a calm confidence that stood in stark contrast to the confusion on their faces.
Then his smirk widened.
He finally spoke, his voice relaxed and self-assured, as though he were welcoming guests into a place they had been expected to visit all along.
"Welcome to my Soul Society."